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Victoria and Albert Museum

Bass viol

The bass viol is a six-stringed instrument, often crowned with a carved female head, fitted with frets along its neck and tuned like a lute. It sounded like a softer version of the 'cello, and by about 1700 it was being played solo as well as in accompaniment in small ensembles.This instrument was mostly made by Joachim Thielke, an important maker from Hamburg (Germany) of the early 1700s, but one of its owners replaced the original tailpiece, which would almost certainly have matched the fingerboard, with one that must have come from an English bass viol.